Been out of touch for days, so just catching up. My single biggest frustration about our passing game is something I've said in lots of game threads last year and (sadly) again this year We HAVE to stop throwing third down passes short of the first down marker. We do that time after time after time, and our conversion rate on those plays is miserable All it does is get us a few more yards of field position and that's a lousy tradeoff for giving up on the chance of making the first down. We only get so many drives per game, and we keep giving up too many of them without a real effort to make the first. To me that's just a loser approach to the game. As countless experts keep saying, playing not to lose rather than to win often results in losing rather than winning.

While I agree with this statement, I also understand why we do it. The defense knows where the 1st down marker is on the field and they populate that area. Throwing to just before that line has a much higher chance of having someone open and it being caught with room to try and get more YAC. But, if someone can't get the YAC, it's all a moot point. Definitely a big pros/cons kind of thing.

Honestly, if we're going to rely on YAC to get 1st downs on 3rd and long, I'd rather suck the defense in and throw a 20 yard pass. Our 3rd down conversions are already horrible. Why not at least take a chance once in a while? On the next one, go back to our YAC. Mix it up a little bit. Keep the defense guessing. Staying with this vanilla offense is going to end up losing us some games and with Seattle's and Arizona's defenses making huge strides, this season could get ugly, fast.

I agree with this. It would be alright it we did it once in a while, but we do it so much, and it's the reason for our low 3rd down conversion rate. Crabtree made it work during that last drive of the Lion's game, but we can't rely on that. We fail on it more times than we succeed.

alot of times its receivers running routes that dont get themselves open, sometimes they gotta juke a defender one direction and cut another so they can create space to be open, I dont see our guys do that often. they usually run to a spot without any jukes and the defender just trails them, you see it all the time from some of the better WR's they'll juke their defender one way to get open, this also opens up double move routes for deep throws.

guys run to a spot and stay there, they need to run past the first down marker like 5 yards and see if the defender is giving them cusion, then if they're guarding them deep run back to catch the pass, if the defender is guarding them for a short pass, just blow pass them for a deep bomb. when that happens Alex needs to see this and our passing game will open up. its just too often our WR's run predictable routes that are easy to defend which is why we have to scheme plays where one receiver would draw coverage so that another guy gets open and when we dont scheme those type of plays this is why no one gets open.

alot of times its receivers running routes that dont get themselves open, sometimes they gotta juke a defender one direction and cut another so they can create space to be open, I dont see our guys do that often. they usually run to a spot without any jukes and the defender just trails them, you see it all the time from some of the better WR's they'll juke their defender one way to get open, this also opens up double move routes for deep throws.

guys run to a spot and stay there, they need to run past the first down marker like 5 yards and see if the defender is giving them cusion, then if they're guarding them deep run back to catch the pass, if the defender is guarding them for a short pass, just blow pass them for a deep bomb. when that happens Alex needs to see this and our passing game will open up. its just too often our WR's run predictable routes that are easy to defend which is why we have to scheme plays where one receiver would draw coverage so that another guy gets open and when we dont scheme those type of plays this is why no one gets open.

I disagree with this. MM and crabtree are two of the best route runners in the NFL. the only wrs that compete with them running routes are cruz, austin jennings and stevie johnson. trust me it is NOT their ability of running good routes._________________

alot of times its receivers running routes that dont get themselves open, sometimes they gotta juke a defender one direction and cut another so they can create space to be open, I dont see our guys do that often. they usually run to a spot without any jukes and the defender just trails them, you see it all the time from some of the better WR's they'll juke their defender one way to get open, this also opens up double move routes for deep throws.

guys run to a spot and stay there, they need to run past the first down marker like 5 yards and see if the defender is giving them cusion, then if they're guarding them deep run back to catch the pass, if the defender is guarding them for a short pass, just blow pass them for a deep bomb. when that happens Alex needs to see this and our passing game will open up. its just too often our WR's run predictable routes that are easy to defend which is why we have to scheme plays where one receiver would draw coverage so that another guy gets open and when we dont scheme those type of plays this is why no one gets open.

I disagree with this. MM and crabtree are two of the best route runners in the NFL. the only wrs that compete with them running routes are cruz, austin jennings and stevie johnson. trust me it is NOT their ability of running good routes.

One thing I notice is that we never test anything past 10 yards most of the time. I watch a lot of football and you see teams doing that every week. I mean, grow a sack and test the waters guys. If we keep playing this type of offense where we only throw short, defenses will key up on that and give us fits every game._________________
Thanks to IDOG_det on the sig!
2011 & 2012 NFC West Champs!!!
Xbox: Steadypimpin49

alot of times its receivers running routes that dont get themselves open, sometimes they gotta juke a defender one direction and cut another so they can create space to be open, I dont see our guys do that often. they usually run to a spot without any jukes and the defender just trails them, you see it all the time from some of the better WR's they'll juke their defender one way to get open, this also opens up double move routes for deep throws.

guys run to a spot and stay there, they need to run past the first down marker like 5 yards and see if the defender is giving them cusion, then if they're guarding them deep run back to catch the pass, if the defender is guarding them for a short pass, just blow pass them for a deep bomb. when that happens Alex needs to see this and our passing game will open up. its just too often our WR's run predictable routes that are easy to defend which is why we have to scheme plays where one receiver would draw coverage so that another guy gets open and when we dont scheme those type of plays this is why no one gets open.

I disagree with this. MM and crabtree are two of the best route runners in the NFL. the only wrs that compete with them running routes are cruz, austin jennings and stevie johnson. trust me it is NOT their ability of running good routes.

Im sure you're right with Crabs and MM, but Crabs doesnt have elite speed to break away so he has to rely on his moves... and honestly ive only seen a short sample of MM. It might be just Alex looks for his first read too quickly and goes there while when he does decide to go through his reads the pocket collapses so the receivers dont have proper time to run their routes so it becomes a schoolyard play after that.

Also I forgot who said the elite QB's have more time, I do notice this too, they stand in their pocket for what seems like forever sometimes and they eventually find an open man to throw to.

alot of times its receivers running routes that dont get themselves open, sometimes they gotta juke a defender one direction and cut another so they can create space to be open, I dont see our guys do that often. they usually run to a spot without any jukes and the defender just trails them, you see it all the time from some of the better WR's they'll juke their defender one way to get open, this also opens up double move routes for deep throws.

guys run to a spot and stay there, they need to run past the first down marker like 5 yards and see if the defender is giving them cusion, then if they're guarding them deep run back to catch the pass, if the defender is guarding them for a short pass, just blow pass them for a deep bomb. when that happens Alex needs to see this and our passing game will open up. its just too often our WR's run predictable routes that are easy to defend which is why we have to scheme plays where one receiver would draw coverage so that another guy gets open and when we dont scheme those type of plays this is why no one gets open.

I disagree with this. MM and crabtree are two of the best route runners in the NFL. the only wrs that compete with them running routes are cruz, austin jennings and stevie johnson. trust me it is NOT their ability of running good routes.

Im sure you're right with Crabs and MM, but Crabs doesnt have elite speed to break away so he has to rely on his moves... and honestly ive only seen a short sample of MM. It might be just Alex looks for his first read too quickly and goes there while when he does decide to go through his reads the pocket collapses so the receivers dont have proper time to run their routes so it becomes a schoolyard play after that.

Also I forgot who said the elite QB's have more time, I do notice this too, they stand in their pocket for what seems like forever sometimes and they eventually find an open man to throw to.

Most of the time we have a nice pocket too. Just sometimes Alex moves out of it and then he has no time to look for an open guy._________________
Thanks to IDOG_det on the sig!
2011 & 2012 NFC West Champs!!!
Xbox: Steadypimpin49

Alex Smith has been pressured on 24.5 % of his drop backs which is great as it ranked the 3rd best in the league only behind Stafford and Brady. However, Smith is sacked on 37.5% of the time he gets pressured which is the 2nd worse in the league only behind Andy Dalton. He definitely has held on to the ball way too long at times. The offensive line for the most part is playing well and giving him enough time. I expect us to take some shots this game.

Bad math here. Nothing in those stats says how long it takes for him to be pressured. So there is nothing here that says he is holding the ball too long. What it does say is that when he's pressured he is more likely to take the sack than to throw a risky pass. My guess is that the coaching staff not only approves of that, but even encourages it._________________

Been out of touch for days, so just catching up. My single biggest frustration about our passing game is something I've said in lots of game threads last year and (sadly) again this year We HAVE to stop throwing third down passes short of the first down marker. We do that time after time after time, and our conversion rate on those plays is miserable All it does is get us a few more yards of field position and that's a lousy tradeoff for giving up on the chance of making the first down. We only get so many drives per game, and we keep giving up too many of them without a real effort to make the first. To me that's just a loser approach to the game. As countless experts keep saying, playing not to lose rather than to win often results in losing rather than winning.

While I agree with this statement, I also understand why we do it. The defense knows where the 1st down marker is on the field and they populate that area. Throwing to just before that line has a much higher chance of having someone open and it being caught with room to try and get more YAC. But, if someone can't get the YAC, it's all a moot point. Definitely a big pros/cons kind of thing.

Honestly, if we're going to rely on YAC to get 1st downs on 3rd and long, I'd rather suck the defense in and throw a 20 yard pass. Our 3rd down conversions are already horrible. Why not at least take a chance once in a while? On the next one, go back to our YAC. Mix it up a little bit. Keep the defense guessing. Staying with this vanilla offense is going to end up losing us some games and with Seattle's and Arizona's defenses making huge strides, this season could get ugly, fast.

Yeah. This is the point I'm making. If we had a reasonable conversion rate on those passes then great. But it seems to me, wholly without stats to back this up, that we very rarely convert third downs when we throw short of the marker.

Here's the way I think of it. If we have third and 10 and throw 2 five yard passes and our guys is tackled all we gain is 10 yards of field position and both drives are ended. If we throw past the first down marker and only complete one of the two passes we've gained the same 10 yards, or more if breaks a tackle, but we keep one drive alive. Given the importance of keeping drives alive and of eating clock and keeping the other team's offense sitting on the bench, that seems like a tradeoff worth making way more than we do it._________________

alot of times its receivers running routes that dont get themselves open, sometimes they gotta juke a defender one direction and cut another so they can create space to be open, I dont see our guys do that often. they usually run to a spot without any jukes and the defender just trails them, you see it all the time from some of the better WR's they'll juke their defender one way to get open, this also opens up double move routes for deep throws.

guys run to a spot and stay there, they need to run past the first down marker like 5 yards and see if the defender is giving them cusion, then if they're guarding them deep run back to catch the pass, if the defender is guarding them for a short pass, just blow pass them for a deep bomb. when that happens Alex needs to see this and our passing game will open up. its just too often our WR's run predictable routes that are easy to defend which is why we have to scheme plays where one receiver would draw coverage so that another guy gets open and when we dont scheme those type of plays this is why no one gets open.

I disagree with this. MM and crabtree are two of the best route runners in the NFL. the only wrs that compete with them running routes are cruz, austin jennings and stevie johnson. trust me it is NOT their ability of running good routes.

+1

I believe, at least hope, that by the latter part of the season we'll see Jenkins in there getting open. He was always open in the preseason and if you watched him in college, or read a summary of his skill set, getting open is one of his strengths. In fact, so much so that I think is one reason we had him rated so high. Let's hope he learns the offense quickly and stops having to think so much causing him to drop passes. As soon as that happens I think he'll start making a contribution._________________

alot of times its receivers running routes that dont get themselves open, sometimes they gotta juke a defender one direction and cut another so they can create space to be open, I dont see our guys do that often. they usually run to a spot without any jukes and the defender just trails them, you see it all the time from some of the better WR's they'll juke their defender one way to get open, this also opens up double move routes for deep throws.

guys run to a spot and stay there, they need to run past the first down marker like 5 yards and see if the defender is giving them cusion, then if they're guarding them deep run back to catch the pass, if the defender is guarding them for a short pass, just blow pass them for a deep bomb. when that happens Alex needs to see this and our passing game will open up. its just too often our WR's run predictable routes that are easy to defend which is why we have to scheme plays where one receiver would draw coverage so that another guy gets open and when we dont scheme those type of plays this is why no one gets open.

I disagree with this. MM and crabtree are two of the best route runners in the NFL. the only wrs that compete with them running routes are cruz, austin jennings and stevie johnson. trust me it is NOT their ability of running good routes.

Im sure you're right with Crabs and MM, but Crabs doesnt have elite speed to break away so he has to rely on his moves... and honestly ive only seen a short sample of MM. It might be just Alex looks for his first read too quickly and goes there while when he does decide to go through his reads the pocket collapses so the receivers dont have proper time to run their routes so it becomes a schoolyard play after that.

Also I forgot who said the elite QB's have more time, I do notice this too, they stand in their pocket for what seems like forever sometimes and they eventually find an open man to throw to.

This really is what it is. Also the other QB's dont have more time, they work the pocket better than alex does. Thats mainly from coaching to get rid of it. If brady were our QB you would see more deeper passes because that is his strength and how he has been coached.

I made a post at the end of the season called "the gift and the curse of alex smith" it was a friend of mines outlook on alex smith from a scouting standpoint. Saying basically when he came into the league coaches gave him more leeway to throw deep and go through his progressions because of his skills they saw early on. They thought he would live up to his #1 ability immediately so threre were few restrictions on him. But he wasnt properly developed. NOW coaches have seen what his limitations are and now restrict him from doing alot of things that he actually can do now because with the restrictions there has evolved proper developement. This is what my friend said. Which I agree. I bet if alex wanted to sling it around he could pretty well. but his coaching and recent developement has dictated to take your first read or throw it away and live to fight another down._________________